Jorito

I’d rather have you prove that you’re right in stead of us proving you’re wrong. Put your money where your mouth is, and all.

Just pointing out that "all within one instance" isn't necessarily a criteria for "better". Some people (myself included) actually _like_ to have articulations on separate tracks rather than messing around with keyswitches, both because of the overview it provides and because it's easier to manage. I am aware that my writing here is as subjective as your comment, but whether or not you can/should do all from within a single instance doesn't make a sample library "better". At the end of the day, workflow is a personal preference and it ultimately is all about that choice + the quality of the samples (which only to an extend is objective but also subjective taste). Anyway, sample quality is only part of it, as other people said. Better libs do make things easier, but at the end of the day it's all about the composition, the orchestration and performances. All things (or at least the first 2) you can even do with "mediocre" samples. If you're looking into Embertone samples anyway, I can recommend the cheaper libs they have on offer. They sound great in their own right, so make sure you give Chapman Trumpet, Shire Whistle, Jubal Flute and Crystal Flute a listen at least. I think they are like $20-$30 and I use them regularly.

I think the 2 lines I quoted more or less sum it up. I think there's no objective point or hard barrier where it would be considered a new work, otherwise there wouldn't be these legal suits every once in a while. So I'd say it's pretty much subjective and on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes you get recognition for your work as original, sometimes you get a lawsuit. In either case you were very likely inspired by another piece (or pieces) of music and probably used elements of that and of other works you've listened to in your work. I guess technically that means most work is derivative on a certain level anyway... But to make this more confusing still... what about sampling stuff? I think earlier in this topic we saw a reference to Vanilla Ice for getting sued for using the Under Pressure bass line. But what about songs from The Prodigy that use samples from a lot of places for many different parts in the song (drums, bass lines, vocals, guitar riffs) or hip hop tracks that incorporated entire sections of a song? Does that count as new work, by just creatively re-using existing materials literally? Is it different from taking a source and recording it yourself on different instruments? I think that's a very tough decision, and I would suspect (didn't check) if you'd check legal procedures for a hint of where the border is, it would probably go either way.

Black and white and legally speaking, yes. Fortunately the world isn't just a black and white legal thing, and this attitude completely bypasses all the other (good!) arguments as to why people remix or not. From what I've read so far, people don't mind not having full ownership but still take pride and ownership of THEIR take on it, while still acknowledging, and honoring, the original creator's work. We can debate legal all day if you want, but it's probably gonna be a boring discussion and OCR probably also isn't the best place to do it, given that most people are aware of the grey area these remixes are in. Just my $0.02. Other than that, I like the discussion and insight shared so far, keep 'em coming!

Yes, legally and commercially you don’t own it. Creatively, I will assume you did pour a lot of heart and soul into it, as ad.mixx describes above. To me, that matters most. Also, like I said earlier, I am not a pro (ie. don’t earn money with it), it’s just a hobby and it doesn’t make to have money and I don’t have to sell it. I’ve found that the pro/commercial perspective changes the whole outlook on things severely. If it’s just a hobby, you can get away with just doing what you feel like (within legal limits of course), simply because enjoyment is the primary concern, rather than the financial/legal aspect where it’s more like a job and less about enjoyment and self fullfillment.

Yes. Maybe not more accurate (equally, I'd say), but definitely easier to do and easier on the CPU. Also, keep in mind we're working in a virtual space and probably also with virtual instruments, so aiming for accurate, realistic reverb seems ... well... pointless to me. I'd go for making it sound good over making it sound realistic any day. If you're looking at the effect of timbre and reverb, I'd say you're better off using proper gains (further back = less loud) and EQ (further back = less highs, less lows) than minutely tweaking your reverb insert to have a 0.1 change in early reflections or pre-delay. Sure, reverb would help in creating distance, but I'd go as far as to say that using the right volume levels and proper EQ-ing the instruments properly will help you more. I hardly ever add reverb to my bass or kick. IF I do, it's a subtle bit of my early reflections bus and maybe a bit of my plate bus. Also, I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, EQ your reverbs (which you can't do if you use it as an insert...) and simply cut off the low freqs there (I usually high pass at around 200hz). Anyway, since you seem to be dead set on sticking with multiple inserts for your reverbs and you seem to be happy with the results, I will leave it at this.

In the grand scheme it doesn’t solve world hunger or bring peace or anything like that. Specifically for myself, in the grand scheme of my life, it brings fun and enjoyment and it’s a creative escape from life’s challenges. So for me, remixing and music are worth it, since it gives me what I want to get out of it. It could have been originals too, but right now that’s something that just doesn’t interest me. Remixing modern soundtracks is definitely possible, but also much harder. They tend to be more ambient and cinematic and less melodic/catchy (and probably less nostalgic too I guess) and you have to work harder to give it your own spin. I’ve remixed some PS2 and PS3 game music, even from orchestral to orchestral, and it’s definitely possible to do it and still make it your own. Anyhoo, I guess my main answer to the question is still “I remix because I enjoy it and because I just feel like it”.

For me, it’s a yes, for a few reasons with quite some overlap in between: 1) It’s fun. I enjoy messing around with music, exploring different genres, experimenting with and learning new things and putting an existing piece of music in a new light. I see remixing as a good tool to develop my skills without putting a lot of pressure on myself. 2) It gives me a concrete goal. I am too lazy to think about a concept, a particular type of sound to think of as my own or to spend a lot of time on creating music nobody cares about. Making a remix is a manageable project with a clear goal that I can just pick up somewhere in between, finish and release it and move on to the next time I feel like it. All things I wouldn’t have when doing originals - and I’m too busy (probably lazy too) to change that. 3) It gives me an audience. There’s plenty of people in the VGM community who seem to enjoy what I do. Even though I myself am my main audience, it’s an extra incentive. Growing your own audience is hard and not something I am really interested in at this time to attempt. I have no ambition to be a professional musician, so to me, remixing is just a hobby, a good and easy excuse to mess around with music without all the pressure, competition, mental health issues that seem to come with being a pro.

If you use sends, you typically set the dry to 0 and the wet to 100% and use the send level to control the balance. I have the impression you’re looking at this from the perspective of a single instrument. When mixing, it’s important to look at the track and balance as a whole. And trust me, I’d rather have 3 reverb sends where I can control the send levels directly from the mixer, rather than having 60 insert effects where I’d have to open the vst or automation lane to control the balance. Make it easy for yourself, save some cpu and look at it from the perspective of mixing a complete track. $0.02.

Basically I just use the methodology explained in https://www.puremix.net/video/creating-space-with-reverbs.html (it's a paid thingie): 1 - One reverb with just early reflections. Typically I use this mostly for live recordings (that usually are close mic'ed) to give them a bit of distance from the mic. It can sometimes also be handy to phatten up a tone at times, but it's primarily in use for recordings. 2 - A plate reverb that's typically used to create distance. I use this one on most of the instruments, with varying send levels. 3 - A hall reverb for 'height'. Typically I only use this for lead instruments and sometimes for snares and claps. Not quite the same setup as I use, but more or less based on the same concepts and it's free, so this might be useful: It's a setup I've been working with for close to 2 years now, it works for me and essentially I have 3 preset channel strips for it now where I sometimes just change the reverb to a different preset. Otherwise I just call it a day and move on. As for getting messy with multiple reverbs, not really. If you apply things subtly and smartly (and very important, EQ the reverbs!), it'll sound fine (IMO). Here's just an example of a sparser track I did with this setup:

I use sends most of the time, for a few reasons. Apart from saving some CPU power, it also helps to glue the sound together (in the case of reverb and delay) when you send all your instruments to the same reverb sends. More importantly, using a send means you can process just the effect. A very common and incredibly useful thing is to EQ the reverb to get rid of some mud. I usually put an EQ after the reverb and cut out everything below 200Hz to prevent a messy sound, and sometimes I also high shelf it to prevent it from sounding thin. Optionally you could also choose to EQ the sound before it gets to the reverb, to remove some nasty frequencies. What I wouldn't do is to use a different AUX/bus for every single instrument, that's not very useful. Just stick to a limited set of sends and use those for all instruments, I'd say. Personally I use 3 reverb busses (one for early reflections, one with a plate reverb and one with a hall reverb) and 1 bus for delay, which I use for almost all of my tracks. For the few times I have an instrument that needs some dedicated processing (e.g. a fancy delay or a long shimmer reverb), I typically add those directly as an insert effect. I usually leave the pan of the sends at 0, but a nice trick is to put a widener (e.g. with the Ozone Imager) on just the reverb so only the reverb gets widened, which makes for a subtle but enjoyable effect. Last but not least, I don't bother switching off the effects in the VSTs/synths. I might tone down the effects a bit if it's too much, but I usually leave them as-is and apply my reverb busses to it. When working with orchestral samples, these tend to be all over the place. Some of them are very wet, some of them very dry, some of them in between. For a homogenous sound I usually end up applying some reverb on the master bus to put them all in the same space. That trick might work for your instruments too, but for synth sounds I usually don't bother and just stick to my regular busses.

For me, being self-taught, when you out it like this, the mentorship was definitely valuable, as I've been mucking about on my own for years figuring out fundamentals without getting feedback, and essentially also needing time to let things sink in and simmer for a while. A process that would have definitely been smoother with having access to said mentorship sooner. On the flip side, I was young, stubborn and put in all the hard work so that, for example, transcription just became something I had to do to reach my goal, when I sometimes see newer remixers here get into a slight panic if there's no midi available. Or figuring out how chords work by just messing with them (and feeling smug about it, not realising there was something like music theory that explains it in so much detail it's not funny anymore). But yeah, even though I did learn the fundamentals mostly by myself and wasted a lot of time and energy on it but gained an intimate understanding of these things, I can imagine mentorship would have definitely helped in many ways - both subtle and not so subtle. Anyway, I'd be interested how the more formally trained musicians like Nabeel or John feel about this mentorship, since they received more formal mentorship during their studies. Was community feedback/advice a good addition to what you already learned, was it contradictory, did it matter at all?

As with most other people in this topic, I’ve found the feedback to be most useful in the initial stages when I was still figuring things out. Always refreshing to have a (preferably more experienced) set of ears point out things you so obviously missed yourself, frankly because you didn’t know what to listen for just yet. So in the initial stages, forum feedback - as well as feedback on IRC/Discord and, later, from the judges panel helped and helps a lot. Also if you’re more experienced, I still really appreciate a fresh perspective on things, even though it’s easier to figure things out yourself. It’s also quite enjoyable to discuss (VGM) music with others, of course, even if only in banter. I’ve done a ton of collaborations, and working with my peers always brings out some interesting new things, thoughts or approaches, it’s always educational as well as enjoyable. Feedback is usually part of the deal, since you’re in it with others and with a mutual goal to make it the best it can be. The last thing that really helped me is the bar for posted remixes, in that it helped me push myself to reach that bar. Probably I otherwise might not have done, despite all my intrinsic motivation. One thing I will point out is that the forums have been less active than when I started. Forums just don’t really seem to be a big thing anymore these days, with discussions moved to platforms like Discord or Facebook. As a result, I’d say that the better question is whether or not community feedback is important rather than forum feedback. I also think that the feedback is only part of the nudge to help you grow, as are the aforementioned judges bar, the opportunity to interact and work with peers and in general being a fertile bed to hone your skills as a musician and as a human. So to me it’s the full package rather than just community feedback.

... from what I've heard so far, 'cute' is an apt description! I'm feeling relaxed, at home and a hero after listening to it

I do the bulk of my mixing on headphones, and I've learned that you've got to be careful when judging reverb when on headphones; it's easy to apply too much reverb and it becomes quickly noticeable if you listen back on speakers. As for collaborations, I seem to be the odd one (in that I do a _lot_ of collaborations) and it's usually me asking and actively recruiting people rather than the other way around. The workshop link in the menu can be a good resource to find people to collaborate with, as you can search by skill/instrument there. As to finding a guitarist, normally you can't throw a stone without hitting at least 3 guitar players, but on OCR they seem to be in hiding or running away from me, since I haven't been that successful in finding a willing guitarist here lately... Maybe they think I smell funny